Netflix new blockbuster fantasy film ‘Bright’ stars Will Smith as ‘racist’ cop

Netflix’s new blockbuster has LA meeting fantasy realm

He certainly had plenty of opportunities in “Bright,” the fantasy-action thriller that has arrived on Netflix.

The streamer won the bidding war to make the reported $90 million original movie that stars Will Smith as a cop named Ward who operates in an alternative Los Angeles, which is not just populated with humans but orcs and elves as well.

The script from Max Landis (the recently canceled “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”) posits a Middle Earth-like society evolving into the mean streets of L.A. Landis even put Ayer’s name on the screenplay hoping to interest him. The writer-director is already known for his gritty tales of the LAPD, such as “End of Watch” and “Training Day.”

His last film was “Suicide Squad,” which starred Smith, and was his first foray into the comic book realm. That film was still pretty violent by anyone’s standard, albeit with some dark humor. “Bright” — despite its title — carries the same tone.

Ayer says Netflix knew what it was getting when it bought the project, allowing him to take a more R-rated approach.

“The theatrical world is driven by economics, and so if you want bigger budgets you have to make a PG-13 film,” he says. “What’s great about Netflix is that they are operating on a different sense of economics and so they can gamble on something like this that’s edgier and grittier. A theatrical version would be more shiny, pretty silly in tone.”

Smith sees the Netflix experience as opening opportunities.

“I’m sure it was the same kind of vibe when the transition happened from theater acting where you went to see a play and then someone decided to film it,” he says. “This is something different. It’s new, almost a new art form.”

Ayer points out though that he filmed “Bright” on “the same large format camera they shoot the ‘Star Wars’ movies with. It was shot with ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ lens sets, Cinemascope lenses, just beautiful old school lens. Everything technological about this is as if we’d done a major feature. For me, there was no difference. It was just a lot of freedom and creativity.”

Also, he notes, “I kept the green screen to a minimum. That just helps ground the fantastic into reality.”

“Bright” also stars Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Lucy Fry and Edgar Ramirez. Edgerton plays the LAPD’s only orc, Jacoby, and is deeply resented by most of the force, who only believe he’s there because of a diversity program.

The Australian actor says what he found interesting in the mashup of reality and fantasy was that it showed a society that had been rocked even before the movie begins. “The tectonic plates haven’t quite worked themselves out,” he observes. “There’s a lot of racism.”

Smith calls it “spectacular” that he got to play an African-American who is prejudiced. “It’s like the flip of those social concepts. As a black dude, you just don’t get a lot of movies where you’re the racist.”

Ayers says the science-fiction fantastic elements of the story allowed them to explore social themes in a way that is palatable to audiences.

To prepare for the film, Smith did ride-alongs with LAPD and with the sheriff’s department. “It was really a different perspective for me to be in the back of cars riding around with police officers in Los Angeles in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods and seeing the complexities from the other side.”

Still, Smith stresses that the main goal of “Bright” is to entertain, and the social issues are “specifically for people to be able to think about it, not to make a judgment about it.”

So don’t worry, the movie has action from the start and plenty of crazy and weird fantasy elements. Rapace plays an evil elf hell-bent on getting her powerful wand back, which has been stolen by a young elf (Fry), a “Bright,” a specially trained expert with supernatural abilities.

Ward and Jacoby — hardly on the best of terms — then stumble into this magical turf war. In this Los Angeles, the orcs are on the low end of the economic spectrum, while the elves are the elite class. Humans are stuck in there somewhere in-between.

Ramirez, who plays a special elf investigator, says he was excited to hear that Ayer was going to shoot a film set in a parallel L.A. Ayer moved out to the city as a teen and his experiences in South Central were the inspiration for his film “Harsh Times.”

“David understands that world very well. He speaks fluent Spanish,” says Ramirez.

Yet it’s been eight years since Ayer had shot in the city, and he found it “absolutely transformed” because of all the new construction.

“We’d go to places to film, and the wrecking ball would be waiting,” he says. “The warehouse district downtown, which used to be where you shoot machine guns, is now a very high-end arts loft district. Even Skid Row’s developing. Classic South L.A. neighborhoods have evolved because there’s been so much invested and so much developed. So, the old L.A. is really disappearing.”

He says he joked with his production designer that “Bright” will soon become a historical reference for how the city once looked.

“I love L.A., but I’m starting to have to rethink what is my city and what does it look like,” he says. Ayer may already be doing that. In January he starts working on a new series for Starz that he describes as being about an L.A. family.

Just an L.A. family?

A crime family, admits Ayer with a smile, “but they have weddings and birthdays, too.” Not a surprising observation since he lists the “Godfather” movies, “Apocalypse Now,” “Scarface” and Walter Hill movies like “48 Hours” among his favorites growing up.

The writer-director, who conceived the series, says he was waiting for the right time and place to “cut his teeth on television.”

And what if “Bright” is successful?

“What’s so great about this universe that Max Landis created is that there’s absolutely more to explore,” he says, “but we’ll see how it does when it comes out.”